


Dean Winchester's Overprotective Posse

by Hard_boiled_candy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel is patient, Dean is damaged, M/M, Modern AU, Past Alastair/Dean Winchester, angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hard_boiled_candy/pseuds/Hard_boiled_candy
Summary: Cas meets Dean and doesn't know what to make of him. Dean calls him all the time but doesn't want to touch him, and seems to really like him, but doesn't want to date him. Dean's friends are protective and his past seems troubled and the stars never seem to align for them to be more than friends, which is what Cas wants.Written from Cas's viewpoint and yes, there's a happy ending.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 11
Kudos: 69
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	Dean Winchester's Overprotective Posse

I met Dean at a Board of Trade mingler; I was new in town after a bad break-up and I was trying to get my medical office consulting business off the ground. Within seconds, I knew him to be mercurial, beautiful, your-ass-is-grass crass, and solid, despite all of that. He seems to be the kind who gets up fast when knocked down, and there’s a little flash of expression that tells you he’s not to be fucked with. He forgives his friends their trespasses and turns people with a grudge into people with a crush. 

I felt like a freight train ran right through me.

He seems unaware of his effect on people; he operates by the most convoluted agenda in the universe. Whatever that agenda is, it seems to be clear to his brother and his group of overachieving friends, but I can’t get a handle on what it is he wants from life. He diverts the conversation every single time. 

I need to be able to imagine the circumstances under which he might stand or sit closer than arms’ length, before I could even try to bend my head around the idea of him voluntarily kissing me. He doesn’t appear to find me disgusting - disgust is a very hard expression to hide and I’m good at noticing it - but he will not come physically close to me and I didn’t shake his hand when we met, a lapse I didn’t even notice until later. 

I’d been looking for excuses to meet up with him or talk to him; after toying with my business card while talking to me for about half an hour, he started phoning me, just before bedtime. He’d babble madly about anything that came into his head, absurd stuff sometimes, as if he was really four or five people jammed into one body and they were taking turns to talk. There was a very soft-voiced individual, when he was talking about Sam or his mother, and this asshole hyper-masculine dude, and this level-headed, appraising person with an incredible amount of common-sense, and this wise-cracking but good-hearted joker. Out of left field, once in a while, at random, it sounds like all of them are speaking with one voice, and it’s usually to say something funny or defamatory about himself. 

Then he’ll shut up and become the best listener I’ve ever met, at least for phone conversations. Probably because I was crushing on him hard and he knew it, in person he was quite stilted and I didn’t even get to casually punch him in the shoulder, since he wouldn’t let me get that close. Once we migrated to the men’s room after a Board of Trade lunch and when he realized we were alone together he blanched and fled the room.

And then he talked to me for an hour that night. 

He came over to my house once. I remember him looking hard at all my furniture, and I tried to imagine what he was seeing. The place isn’t a palace and it isn’t a dump, what can I say. I never was invited to his house.

I fantasized about having sex with him, and I froze solid in my head, never getting past a chaste kiss, (no tongue). He didn’t want me touching him; I’d have to do something non-consensual with him to get there, even to get a kiss. I know. I’m a weirdo.

I tried a flanking maneuver. Charlie Bradbury is one of Dean’s phalanx of hyper-intelligent, socially evolved friends; I figured since our respective offices were within six blocks of each other downtown, a meet-up for coffee was perfectly nominal. 

She has green eyes. They are less leafy and more lapidary, compared to Dean’s, and more shrewd in expression, by far. Against her fair skin and her red hair they’re set like agate - I’d feel a tug of interest if she hadn’t flown her ‘gay babe’ flag early in our acquaintance.

“You want to know about Dean.”

I’d come prepared. “Dean does a fine job of itemizing every piece of television he’s ever watched,” I said. “I was hoping your conversation would be less soporific.”

“What?” Charlie said, her expression droll as her eyebrows flashed upward. She smiled, a fey smile. “You really want me to tell you about the paper I am presenting at DEF CON?”

I grinned. “I wouldn’t understand more than the preliminary two sentences, and likely not even that,” I said. “But your travel woes, your expectations and fears, the impact at work if any, or on your future employability –”

“If any,” she broke in, her voice full of foreboding. As was her habit, she cheered up with a speed that made ‘breakneck’ seem like a dawdle. “But I see what you mean. The paper itself - well, let’s just say that in a conference full of people willing to say unpopular things, I’m going to be saying something nobody in the room wants to hear, and which I candidly didn’t even want to have to _think_ more than a few times.”

“And then you volunteered,” I said drily.

I did not learn anything about Dean. She asked me, in the middle of a tirade about the cosplay and accessibility policies of the closest general fandom convention, “When are you talking to Dean?”

I could feel myself flush. I think the soles of my feet caught some unwelcome skin-reddening action. I said, with as little emotion as possible. “He calls me, I don’t call him. He talks for about a half an hour and then hangs up.”

“Really? How often?”

_Fuck me, fuck my life, fuck the wretched horse that conveyed me to this town._

“A couple of times this week,” I said casually.

“It’s Tuesday,” she said, “So, every night, then.”

“Ask him, if you don’t believe me,” I said shrugging and trying to act somewhat offended. I tried to change the subject but before I could draw a breath she was on me again.

“What does he talk about?”

“Ask him! I don’t speak for him!” I said, and now I was obviously flustered.

She tilted her head like a pug pining for a treat. “Do you think you’re worthy of him?”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

“Oh, Charlie,” I gasped. “He certainly doesn’t think so.”

“What makes you think that? I think he really likes you,” Charlie said, seeming surprised.

“Dean definitely likes me enough to call me on the phone. Maybe he finds my conversation entertaining.”

“You said he talks for a half an hour.”

“He pauses once in a while; he sort of runs out of air and I get a chance to get a word in edgewise and then he listens.”

“Doesn’t that sound promising to you?”

“He’s not interested in me sexually,” I said bluntly. “His friendship is wonderful. I’m interested in more. He is not. It’s not for me to be nosy about his choices, just to respect them.”

Charlie looked at me for a long while without saying anything. It became clear she knew something about Dean that she wasn’t supposed to tell me, and she kept his secret. 

I gave up even a chance to fantasize about him. I wanted him in my arms and he didn’t, and that’s where things were.

“Hear you had coffee with Charlie,” Dean said during his next phone call.

I was not sleeping well; some asshole that I have a crush on kept calling during sleep prime-time. I yawned and said, “Yeah, though technically I had kombucha and she had a tall white chai with a hazelnut shot.”

“What did you talk about?” Dean asked.

“DEF CON, cosplay, the chair of the local con being a dickweed, my work troubles and you,” I said.

There was a long pause. I said, “I didn’t mean to offend. She didn’t say anything she shouldn’t.”

“Right,” Dean said. He didn’t sound happy, and got off the phone really fast.

He turned up at my door twenty minutes later. He literally must have thrown himself into his car and driven here as if his snack-like butt was on fire. I have never wanted to go full cave-man harder than I did in that moment; I wanted to drag him in and throw him on the sectional. And I didn’t, and I hoped that he didn’t catch my expression.

“Dean, it’s ten o’clock at night,” I said. I stepped out onto the porch in my socked feet.

“Did she tell you?”

“What? Charlie?” I changed my voice so I sounded like Dracula. “She looked at me with pitiless eyes and a face of stone,” and I started talking normally again and said, “and didn’t say a fucking thing, Dean. Your friends are so protective of you I have to assume that you experienced some terrible trauma, which somehow didn’t make it into the newspapers.” I had googled the living shit out of Dean and all of his friends, without result. 

“There was a cover-up,” Dean said. His face was expressionless. “You’re not going to invite me in?”

“No, Dean, I’m setting boundaries. You hungry? I could go for phó. There’s a 24-hour joint a ten minute walk from here, if you want.”

“I don’t walk,” Dean said. Snottily.

“Well, it was good to see you, Dean, but if you won’t walk and I won’t let you in, that means we’re standing on my porch talking, which will disturb my neighbors.”

I could see every freckle by that unforgiving LED porch light. His eyelashes seemed to sparkle for a second and then he said, “Let’s go sit in Baby.”

I had seen and heard the car previously, and I smiled. “Oh, this is a rare privilege.”

“You bet your ass it is,” Dean said.

“Let me get my shoes.”

Dean peered past me. “You seriously won’t let me into the house.”

“Dean, we both know what is happening here. I am interested, and you aren’t, but you like me and want to hang out with me. If I say, ‘wah wah! I’ve been friend-zoned!’, I’m an incompetent puppy, and if I make a move after all these ‘not interested’ signals, I’m a creep.” He smirked at my air quotes, which was annoying. “So no, you’re not coming into my house. The only reason I’m okay with the car is that we can be seen.”

“You’re afraid to be alone with me?” Dean said, and left his mouth hanging open. “You have that little self-control?”

“I have as much self-control as I need,” I said slowly, in my deepest voice. “I’m not entitled to your time. But friends touch once in a while and you won’t come near me, so I guess I’m assuming the worst.”

“Which is?”

“You have a good reason not to want to be affectionate with anyone. Except Sam.” I’d met his brother once, and been amazed at their big, long, rocking hug. They don’t look much alike, apart from being tall and good looking, so I was jealous there for a second too, until he called me up to meet Sam, and I realized I was being foolish over the guy’s brother.

We got in the car. Dean tried to speak a couple of times, and I shook my head. “You don’t even want to talk to me. I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but I’m not going to sit here and stare off into space when I could be at least _trying_ to sleep.” I got out and went back in the house, and he went home.

The next morning I got a call from Charlie, “What did you say to Dean? He came over here last night and wouldn’t leave, and wouldn’t tell me why he was so upset.”

I laughed. “Dean seems pretty high maintenance,” I said cynically. “Why didn’t you ask him what he said to me, that I didn’t want to hang out with him?”

I thought the top of her head was in peril of coming off, the way she yelled. “Are you seriously trying to make me think it was his fault?”

“When a man comes to your house at ten o’clock at night to remind you how thick the barbed wire is around his friend-zone, I think it’s perfectly appropriate to go back inside,” I said. “And seriously, I didn’t say anything to him except that maybe I hinted it was unfair for him to do that when I had a crush on him. I think he’s under the impression that since I have a crush he can just walk all over me, and I’m not playing.”

“Dean really likes you.”

“That’s great news, news I’ll appreciate _so much more_ if I ever heard it out of Dean’s mouth,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish on Dean’s behalf, but if Dean’s sad, that’s on him. I was polite and I set boundaries. Let me ask you a question. If your friend is having mental health problems, does that mean they can do anything to you, consequence-free?”

There was a pause.

“No.” It was grudging, but she acknowledged my point.

“Eventually I’ll get over this little issue I have with Dean, find someone a little less exciting, who’s willing to have a fully adult relationship with me. I don’t know what Dean needs, but I do know that I can’t be whatever that is until he tells me, and I also know he won’t tell me.”

“Dean doesn’t think he deserves to be happy,” Charlie said, her voice cracking.

“That’s on Dean. For all I know, he’s right,” I said. I was pretty choked at that point. His friends are all ready to rush in and protect him, but, here’s an observation: I don’t get that from _anyone_ because most people think I’m a _functioning adult._

Charlie pleaded, “Give him a chance.”

“A chance to do what?” I asked.

“To come out of his shell a little more. He’s doing so well since he met you!” Charlie claimed.

“He can call me anytime. I don’t want him showing up at my house unannounced.”

There was another little pause.

“He didn’t tell you he was coming over?”

“Nope, just showed up, all freaked out, at ten o’clock at night. Two minutes later and I would have been in my pyjamas.”

“And you made him leave.”

“Charlie, remember when I asked you if somebody having mental health problems has carte blanche to push boundaries _and_ communicate very badly?”

“Yeah, and I said no, but this is Dean we’re talking about.” Charlie sighed. “You’re the only person Dean’s liked in years that any of the rest of us can stand.”

I laughed longer than I should have, and I have rarely felt so inane. “So this is social pressure. Poor Dean. He’s getting it from both sides, no wonder he’s miserable. What does Sam think? He’s only met me a couple of times.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Probably not,” I said, trying to keep my voice agreeable. “‘Bye, Charlie.”

I called Dean as soon as I hung up from my call with Charlie.

He sounded very hangdog as he said, ‘hello’, having no doubt seen my name. “Do you want to date me?” I asked, point blank.

“Well, I, I mean Cas –”

“Simple question, simple answer, Dean.”

“I –” and he fell silent.

“So, no. Do you want to continue to be friends?”

“Yeah,” he said, with no hesitation this time.

“Fine. Come over for dinner Thursday, bring beer. Six-thirty sharp.”

“Okay,” he said. He sounded cheerful now. “So you’re not angry with me.”

“Nope,” I said. 

“Okay, I’ll see you Thursday.”

“Yup,” I said.

“Can I call you?”

“Can I stop you?” I asked, laughing.  
“That’s not what I meant. I meant, would it bother you, if I called you?”

“I’ll tell you if it does.”

“Oh,” he said, as if he was taken aback. “See you Thursday, then,” and he hung up.

For the next six months I did everything I could to wash that man out of my hair, without actually dropping him as a friend. Finally I told him that I was over my last boyfriend enough that dating no longer seemed to be hopeless, and that was when it became obvious that Dean, in his own not very subtle way, was now courting me. Except it felt wrong. Like it was something he felt forced to do.

He kissed me under mistletoe. I thanked him carefully for splitting my lip in such a Christmas-y way and he didn’t try to kiss me again. 

I wished I hadn’t said a fucking thing. I fantasized about that kiss for days.

Next, he never gave up a chance to lie down or sit down next to me. He once made a woman spill her drink so he could squeeze in beside me, and then I disappeared to the back deck to get away from him because he was being an ass and I didn’t want to be the cause of it. 

I still didn’t know, as I looked out over the river, why Dean was only interested in me when I was making plans to finally quit him.

I figured I’d test it, and respond the next time he tried to get close to me. But after that party he never tried anything again, and stopped dropping by, so I went to Jacko’s and picked up a guy and got laid for the first time in two years.

I cried at an inconvenient time and he bailed after about ten minutes of cuddling.

Dean stopped calling.

One night, about a month after I stopped hearing from him, he showed up super drunk, and I knew better than to let him in, so I hung out with him on the porch, since he wasn’t really talking.

He got closer to me than he ever gets; he sat next to me on the porch swing. I knew he was going to try to kiss me, his body language was telegraphing it. I knew where the Impala keys were and as he landed his stupid, public kiss I pulled his keys out of his pocket and stashed them, while responding wildly.

The Wild Turkey and the stubble really did it for me, what can I say.

Dean asked if we could take it inside and I said, “You’re too drunk to consent.”

“Can I consent in the morning?” Dean mumbled.

“No,” I said. “But unfortunately for both of us I’d rather have sex with you drunk off your ass than never at all.”

He slurred as he defended his choices, not a good look. “I’m not confused about this.”

“You don’t want anyone to know you like men; I’d say you’re not confused about _that_ part at all. I tell you what. Don’t ever drive here drunk again, or I’ll report you. I’m not fucking you tonight because despite everything I said I want us both to be sober, I have that much self-esteem.”

There was a pause.

“I took your keys,” I said.

“I have a spare,” he said. “So I guess you want me to sleep it off on your porch.”

That would have been stupid. He ended up face down on the couch, which I was praying he wouldn’t puke on.

He didn’t. I left his car keys on the coffee table and he was gone in the morning.

I figured that was that, but what did he do? He showed up after supper the next night, sober, and we Hollywooded our way to my bed, shedding clothes in a slow, teasing line the entire way. I’ve never been kissed like that, held like that, and when he put my cock in his hand on the stairs I nearly came right then from startlement and pure horniness.

I’m a bottom, and he made me top him, and I loved it. You heard me – I’d switch for that guy.

I turned around and he had a toothbrush in the bathroom. The next time I turned around his favourite beer was always in the fridge and I was supposed to start buying a different brand of crackers and he was sleeping over a couple of nights a week. At the end of the third month, we’re curled up on the sofa watching Zone Blanche (Dean is in love with Teddy Bear, **of course** ) on Netflix and he says, out of the blue, a sentence that makes my heart almost stop.

After three months of being very intense, sleepover fuck buddies who also do things like laundry and shopping together (so it’s not quite true that we’ve never left the house together but there is no fucking way you can call hitting the liquor store and running three loads at the laundromat ‘a date’), he turns to me with all seriousness and says, “Do you think I’m boyfriend material?”

I’m lucky I wasn’t taking a drink, he’d have had to call an ambulance. As it was, I could feel my eyes trying to pop out, so I put my hands over them to try to keep them from coming out like champagne corks.

“Dean,” I said, from behind my hands. “I’ve wanted to date you from the beginning. You’re not out, remember? Wanted to keep it all on the down low? I have been doing like you wanted.”

“I thought maybe now that we’re fucking on the regular there’s nothing else you like about me.”

I said, “I don’t even want to address your utter foolishness and your total absence of observation, which would be the only things that would enable you to explain how it is you can think I can do _anything_ but love you.”

“What?”

“Dean, are you crying?”

“Shut up.”

“Of course I love you, don’t be silly. I didn’t say it because we weren’t going anywhere long term, remember?”

“You could love me without wanting to date me,” Dean said, with continuing irrationality. “And if I didn’t tell you I wanted to be your boyfriend you could starting wanting somebody who would.”

“Well, that’s pretty much where I’m hosed,” I said. I nuzzled his neck. I never used the word ‘hosed’ before I met Dean. “No-one else is showing any interest.”

“Because you’re at home with me almost every night,” Dean said. He was still sniffing. “I could be preventing you from being happy.”

“Are you telling me you’ll be my boyfriend in public?”

“Well, yeah, but I was kind of hoping we could skip that part,” Dean said, and he pulled a little velvet box out of his pocket.

“Jesus Christ!” I said.

Dean ignored my outburst and said, “While I have you fooled that you couldn’t do better, will you marry me?”

The ring was black, non-reflective metal with a thin metallic line incised in it, that shimmered in rainbow colours if you looked at it in exactly the right light.

“Oh my God, Dean,” I said. I’d said I hated gemstones once, that there was nothing manly about asking poor people to dig in the ground so rich people could have flashy jewelry. This ring was perfect. I tried to straighten out my thought processes.

“I want to be engaged for at least a year,” I said sternly. “Maybe two. Get everything squared away.”

“Can we at least live together?” Dean asked.

“Not for the first year,” I said. I was going to be stubborn, and I was going to be sure. I knew in my heart I’d never love anyone as much as this maddening, beautiful, repressed, adorable man, but I was Dean’s first real relationship in years, and now that he was feeling more confident, he might feel restless with a boring homebody like me, and find someone better.

“Okay,” Dean said. He looked smug. “Who do you want to tell first?”

“Nobody. It has to be super secret,” I said.

“What?”

“I know how you like to skip certain parts. Why don’t you tell me what happened to you that you wouldn’t even let me touch you for months and months after we met.”

Dean’s face is maddening. Every emotion that fills his mind comes out on his face. But when he doesn’t want you to know what he’s thinking, it’s a blank, beautiful canvas, with crows’ feet starting to leave permanent lines, and a few kissable divots around his mobile mouth, and not a fucking thing else to let you know what the hell is going on back there. I handed the ring back and his eyes bugged out and his mouth dropped open.

“No, I don’t want to do that,” he said, very low and very clear.

“I’m not marrying you when all your friends know and I don’t.”

“They know because they saw me or knew there was a police investigation,” Dean said. “They know because the docs told my bro I’d probably have permanent psychological damage. Which I do. I mask it well. They know because they were told by the police exactly what happened to me.”

“You said there was a cover up. A long time ago.”

“I thought you forgot about that.”

“It was the only thing you ever said to me of any substance about this ‘event’ and you think I’d forget! I love how inept you think I am, while wanting to marry me.”I refused the ring when he tried to press the box into my hand.

“Recognize when you’ve hurt someone, Dean.” I looked him in the face, and walked him to the door. He put his shoes and jacket on and said, “Are you breaking up with me?”

I tried to make it as clear as possible. “You want to marry me under false pretences. I don’t. We don’t have to break up, but I’m not interested in marrying you.”

I’ve never seen a man look more heartbroken.

“It’s a really nice ring. If we ever do get married, that’s the one I want,” I said, as if that would help. He left.

Oh, Jesus.

The phone calls. Sam was first, which I wasn’t expecting. Usually it’s Charlie who flies into my texts or land line like a fucking avenging angel. I was doing tech support for two different doctors’ offices which were having training and installation issues. I wasn’t on the phone with them, it was all in the messaging app so nobody had to hear anybody else.

“Hey Cas, I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about what happened with Dean.”

“Sure, Sam. Let’s talk about how he’s a grown man, and whenever he’s having emotional problems his friends all call me and tell me to be nice to him. He won’t tell me how he was injured or why the police were involved but he wants to marry me. I said yes on condition that he tell me what happened to him and nope, he’s not ready. Then I gave him the ring back but told him to hang onto it.”

“What?”

“I told him to hang onto it. It’s very striking.”

“He said you broke up with him.”

“I did not, but if that’s what he thinks, I’m not chasing after him, I’m mad as hell at him right now. Do we need to talk about anything else?”

“Well, me and Eileen are hosting a dinner on Sunday and you and Dean were coming –“

“Relax, Sam, you won’t have to deal with me and Dean bickering or giving each other the silent treatment.”

“Okay,” and he sighed heavily, like this was not what he wanted me to say.

Next up it was Jo. I had nothing in common with that woman apart from friendship with Dean and no idea why she’d call me, but she was the one who had the decency to break the omertà around Dean.

“I can’t stand it,” she said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to Dean and I don’t want him to mess it up. So here goes.” She sighed. She sighed again.

“That bad,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. So. When Dean was in his early twenties, a married couple who lived in a secluded location kidnapped him and kept him as a sex slave for four days.”

“Holy shit,” I said inadequately. My heart started to pound.

“I only found out about it because me and my boyfriend of the time - a buddy of Dean’s - were out necking in his car when Dean, buck naked, stumbled across us while making his escape. At the time he kept talking about being tortured but I couldn’t see a mark on him, and then the cops showed up and then Alistair and Bela Butcher almost got arrested, but then they bribed and cheated their way out of the charges with all kinds of legal procedural bullshit. It was a total mess, and way before #MeToo and Dean didn’t want to make too big a deal out of it because he was afraid he’d lose custody of Sam, which he almost did by going missing.”

“Jesus,” I said involuntarily. If I know one thing about Dean it’s that he would cheerfully go to hell and back for his brother, no questions asked.

Jo sighed again and continued. “Dean was an adult, Dean had consented, and they could prove it. They showed the cops a video of Dean consenting. Then things got weird. Bela and Alistair knew that there would be a lot of questions. They skipped town and next thing you know Alistair’s killed Bela and then himself in a hotel outside of Miami, so the cops told Dean, yeah that shit all probably happened, but they’re dead! and they closed the case.”

“Dean never got justice.”

“Some days he thinks he did. Some days not so much. Anyway, now you know.”

“Dean is going to be angry that you told me, I suspect,” I said.

“No,” Jo said. “I don’t think so. He’ll be sad. He’ll be disappointed. I may have screwed things up for you guys. I hope not.”

It took me a long time to figure out what to say to him, and longer than that to get the courage to call him. It was late when I did.

“‘Lo,” he said.

“Dean, Jo called me and told me what happened.”

“Jo did,” he said. “I figured for sure it would be Sammy, but you never know about people, do you? So, I guess you sending me packing with the ring in my hand was the right thing to do,” he said. as if he was talking about the weather.

“No, it was totally the wrong thing to do,” I said. “I should have trusted you, that you’d tell me when you were ready. I mean, it hurt, that you didn’t feel safe enough to tell me, but then again, I don’t know what you went through.”

“Oh, I’m damaged, all right.” The self-hatred bubbled up through the sarcasm.

I didn’t know how to tell him that he was perfect, especially since it was the last thing he wanted me to say, and not something he could let himself hear.

“I don’t see you that way. You’re cautious. I don’t blame you. And I’m not going to blame you if you’re done with me. I wanted to phone and say that’s not what I want, but I’ll abide by your decision.”

“And you’ll let me go without a fight,” he said.

Tears stung my eyes and I fought to keep my voice level. “I’ve been fighting for you since the day I met you. I want to marry you, be your partner, share your life, and sometimes – sometimes you feel that way about me, too.”

“I always feel that way about you," Dean said.

“I don’t see a problem, then,” I said softly.

“Can I come over?”

After, we’re lying together with the sweat cooling, Dean’s head on my chest, his free hand stroking my sternum and I’m feeling stunned and blissful and boneless. Dean whispers, “It took ten years, after Alistair - after the abuse - before I could admit that I was bisexual. I had to get those two things apart, the abuse and the sexuality. Then I - I would meet men and I’d panic. I would want so badly to perform, and I couldn’t. I met you and for the first time in fucking years I looked at a guy and thought, this is a man who would never intentionally hurt me. You started to pull away and I panicked again, I thought I had to do something, show you that I was interested, and your reaction was so strange.”

“I’d given up,” I said.

“Yeah. I got that. Then you called me up and said we could be friends and I was so relieved I cried after I got off the phone. Better to be your friend and see you once in a while than lose you. I kept feeling like I was falling in love and it was pointless because you’d find a reason to dump me…. once you knew. About me. My friends kept telling me I’d lose you if I didn’t tell you and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. I tried a hundred times.”

I felt a teardrop hit my neck and a wave of protective feeling swept over me. He was so precious to me, if I showed it to him all at once he’d break in pieces. _One day at a time_.

I shook him, gently. “Hey, babe.”

“It’s never going to be perfect. I have triggers, sometimes, certain sounds, and smells. But I do feel safe with you, and I don’t ever want you to think I don’t.”

“You have to tell me when things are bad, before they get so bad you can’t tell me.”

“Ha,” he chuckled. “Yeah. I should. Were you serious about being engaged for two years?”

“That was then, when I was trying to be a responsible adult.” I said. “This is now. A marriage licence is 85 bucks, don’t ask me how I know, and I can loan you the money, if you’re short this week.”

“So it’s like that, is it?” Dean said, nipping my jaw and shifting his hips into position for round two. “I think I’m good for it.”

“Don’t forget to thank Jo,” I said.

He got a funny look on his face. Then he shifted across me and got his phone out. “Ow,” I said as his elbow dug into me.

He showed me the text he was about to send.

**Dear Jo you are the best asshole friend I ever had boneration is happening do you want to be in the wedding party love dean.**

“She'll probably screen cap and frame that text, my God. Do you suppose she’ll keep it a secret with the rest of her friends?” I asked. “Sam better hear it from you.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Okay, group text.”

**Marrying Cas, don’t know when, yes Jo told him, you can all relax.**

“You have amazing friends,” I said.

“They helped me catch _you_ ,” he said smugly, and then fixed it so I couldn’t say a word in reply.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed my mix of angst and humor!


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